Competence Centers at HESAV

Interprofessionality is a key focus at HESAV, implemented through interprofessional teaching programs and research. It is deployed in collaboration with a community of collaborators and learners from different disciplines and professions. The main mission of the Interprofessional Competence Center is to train future healthcare professionals to collaborate efficiently with other healthcare and social professionals and understand the patients’ healthcare pathway in a complex and constantly changing healthcare system. It also aims to promote continuous interprofessional development. Through partnerships with healthcare institutions (throughout the healthcare settings) and other training institutions at the national and international level, it aims to meet the needs of the field and the healthcare system through teaching, research, and innovation.

Beyond biomedical aspects, the Humanities in Care and Health Competence Center explores how social, cultural, psychological, ethical and gender-related factors shape health and care. This involves research and reflection on what “care” means in its humanistic dimension — considering patients’ experiences, social determinants of health, gender issues and inequalities, societal contexts, patient rights, and how care is perceived and lived.

Through an integrated and translational approach, the Health & Technologies Competence Center contributes to HESAV’s mission of re-shaping health by promoting responsible innovation, strengthening professional competencies, and supporting evidence-based decision-making in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

The Center focuses on the design, adoption, evaluation and critical analysis of health technologies, with the objective of ensuring that they are useful, usable, equitable and sustainable, and that they meaningfully improve care, education and health systems.

Bringing together expertise from health sciences, engineering, data science and end user, the Center supports the full lifecycle of health technologies, from needs identification and development to implementation, evaluation and scale-up. It operates across education, research and professional services, ensuring a strong links between scientific evidence, teaching and practice through:
(i) Integration of digital health, data and AI literacy into undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education programs, as well as outreach to society.
(ii) Development of interdisciplinary research and innovation projects in collaboration with academic, clinical, industrial and public partners.
(iii) Provision of expertise, training and advisory services for the responsible evaluation and implementation of health technologies.

HESAV’s Competence Center for Sexual Health, Women’s Health and Perinatal Care brings together expertise in sexual, reproductive and perinatal health across their experiential, relational, emotional, biomedical, social and policy dimensions. The Competence Center aims to better understand and address the experiences and health needs of women, couples and families throughout the life course. Particular emphasis is placed on participatory approaches, health determinants and epistemic justice to promote more equitable and person-centered healthcare.

The Competence Center develops innovative and interdisciplinary work across three main areas: sexual, emotional and reproductive health; women’s and pelvic health; and perinatal care. Its activities focus on reducing health inequalities, improving access to informed and respectful care, advancing prevention and early detection strategies, and supporting evidence-based clinical practice. Research topics include sexual and reproductive rights, women’s health conditions, pelvic health, gender-based and obstetric violence, fertility and parenthood, as well as maternal, newborn and family wellbeing.

By combining expertise from multiple health disciplines and collaborating with academic, clinical and community partners, the Competence Center contributes to the development of innovative models of care that are accessible, inclusive and responsive to diverse populations. Its work seeks to strengthen the quality of care, improve health outcomes and inform both professional education and healthcare policy.